“She knew Mom was going to marry Dad, too.” I point atWoman named Rachel joins family.
Misty reads the paper in my hand over my shoulder. “An asteroid? Do I get hit by an asteroid?!”
“I hope that’s howIgo,” Trevor says yearningly. “Imagine getting cratered. It would make for the most awesome final view, and then you’ve already got half the burial finished.”
Misty backs away from the box, hands in the air. “This is what I get for trying to find out what’s in locked boxes. Boxes are locked for a reason. Now I’ve got to live the rest of my life wearing a hard hat, trying to hide from the sky. Goddamn it, Doireann, you saw this happening twenty-four years ago! You couldn’t have warned me?”
“Maybe the asteroid doesn’thityou,” Morgan suggests. “Maybe there just happens to be one passing by on the day that you die. A little aerial hello before you go.”
“Who’s Delphine?” I ask. “Any of us know a Delphine?”
Everybody shakes their heads. “I know a Delaney,” Nitya says. “Maybe she got the name wrong?”
“She was never wrong,” Luna and Misty reply in unison.
Spooky.
We decide it’s for the best if we stop reading, because if Grandma’s predictions were never wrong, then there’s nothing we can do to avoid our fates. Keep going, and I might see something likeZelda will be devoured by a hippopotamus. While folding the papers back up, I come across one that catches my eye.
Grandma’s drawn a crude map with a few words scratched in—BBW, cave, trestle.In the middle, it saysFalling Rock Triangle, and below that, in faded pencil:Where lost things go.
“What a woman,” I marvel. “Gone for a year now, and she’s still confusing us.”
Romina smiles sadly. “She isn’tgone, gone. But goodness, I miss seeing her.”
“And her traveler’s talismans,” Nitya pines. “Remember those?Delicious.”
For the autumn equinox, Grandma used to bake small golden cakes shaped like triangles, called traveler’s talismans. Luna had called the cakespirate hats. Grandma said they were shaped that way because triangles are the most protective shape in witchcraft, but also, when traveling in these woods at Halloweentime, you’re supposed to carry a triangle on you as a talisman. If you accidentally slip into the realm of the dead when the veil is thin and you can’t find your way, a triangle will aid your return.
“I’d kill for the recipe,” Luna muses. “I’ve had Ash beg Grandma for it a million times, and she always says I’ll get it as a present eventually. Ghosts don’t have a lot of options for gift-giving, so she insists on spacing out whatever she’s got. She knows where I lost one of my bracelets, but she’s saving the location reveal for Christmas. Why are grandmothers like this?”
The others keep chattering on, but my mind has caught a snag on triangles, and I can’t stop staring at the peculiar diagram. What sort of prediction was this?Where lost things go.
BBW. Cave. Trestle.
BBW.
“The Black Bear Witch,” I whisper.
Twenty
To protect your loved ones on their travels, dust the soles of their shoes with butcher’s broom root.
Spells, Charms, and Rituals,
Tempest Family Grimoire
Morgan takes Grandma’sdrawing. “You think she might’ve had a dream about where the witch lives?” He keeps his voice down, but I don’t think the others would hear; they’ve moved outside, shifting goodbyes into phase two, in which Misty and Nitya tell us goodbye while standing next to Nitya’s car. In about fifteen minutes, they’ll be saying goodbye frominsidethe car, with the windows rolled down, and that phase will last another fifteen minutes.
“I have no idea.” I’m still reconciling myself with the concept that Grandma’s visions werereal, and what that means for me.
It would mean that the silver luna moth prophecy is real, that my sisters and I are destined to fall in love with ourTrueLoves, within the same year. If Romina truly saw a silver luna moth a month ago, then that gives Luna and me…
“Zelda?”
…Five remaining months to fall in love with our fated ones.
Morgan passes his hand back and forth in front of my face. “Yoo-hoo! Still in the room?”
